


In the Land of the Blind

by Kat_o_nine_Tails



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Backstory, Character Study, introspective
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-11
Updated: 2016-12-11
Packaged: 2018-09-07 22:26:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,917
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8818525
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kat_o_nine_Tails/pseuds/Kat_o_nine_Tails
Summary: There is a reason why Natasha never looks into mirrors and doesn't kill with her bare hands.





	

Natasha was six when she realized that the world was blind.

That was even before the Red Room, before the fire that took the parents she didn't let herself remember. Simple things that always seemed glaringly obvious to Natasha, like the fact that the flower girl from the corner, with her thorn scratched hands, liked the soldier that did the patrols around their block, but the soldier never did anything but bid her a quiet 'privet' whenever she offered him a flower. So young Natasha, who was still Natalia back then, walked up to the soldier as if she wasn't all of three feet tall, and told him bluntly the flower girl liked him.

The soldier looked at her for a second in confusion then, with a faint blush and a guilty look and that _twitch_ of his hand, stepped around her without a word and went on as if she hadn't said anything. But that was enough for Natalia to realize that the reason he didn't return the flower girl's affection was because he was sleeping with his superior. Homosexuality was illegal, so it made sense he hadn't told her. Natalia decided to do it for him and so told the flower girl.

It was only years later that she realized why the girl cried. Because she didn't know. Because nobody knew, not simply because they were turning a blind eye. Everything Natalia saw around herself every day were things nobody else noticed. Because even though their eyes were perfectly functional they still couldn't _see,_ couldn't _read_.

A soul could be seen from a face, and a lifetime can be read out of someone's hands.

Later, that same soldier rescued her from the fire. He never mentioned what Natalia deduced about him that day, not even when she realized that the man he was sleeping with was executed when he was found out, and even at gunpoint he hadn't given up Ivan's name.

Her talent was discovered and weaponized the Red Room. Everything the other 28 girls had to be painstakingly taught Natalia knew instinctively. Even only halfway through the program it was obvious who would become the Black Widow.

Sometimes, she could still hear Jelena whisper 'only the breakable ones' in her sleep. But Natasha heard the real question: 'Are you breakable?' And sometimes, as she reads her sins written in her hands, she wished she had been.

Somewhere along the line she realized another thing: people were blind unless you showed them what you wanted them to see plainly. Some girls practiced in front of a mirror; Natasha practiced through people. She observed a man for a set period of time, deduced what it was that he wanted of a woman and then became that woman. Through trial and error she knew how to become not what she thought people wanted to see in a mirror, but what people wanted to see with their own eyes.

Every time a man, woman, hero, soldier, politician, doctor, monster, alien, creature or even god fell for it, never saw a blade or a bullet coming she quashed down that feeling of disappointment. Why would she feel disappointed that she had finished the mission perfectly? She did her best not to answer that question for the same reason she had no mirrors in her various houses and only used a small magnifying compact mirror to apply her makeup.

A soul could be seen from a face, and a lifetime can be read out of someone's hands. There is a reason why Natasha never looks into mirrors.

Once came a time when she wondered what would happen if she stopped pretending. If she didn't read a target and instinctively molded herself into what would please them the most. She thought the end result would be a lot like coming to a masked ball in her birthday suit; people would see no mask and assume she was wearing one anyway and try that much harder to figure out what it was.

Perhaps it was precisely because of the masquerade analogy that she decided to test that theory on an agent that fought with a _bow_ of all things. A first glance at his face told her of an abusive father and an estranged brother. His hands told her about poor childhood and formative years in a circus, and a lifetime of work. A life that couldn't have been more different than her own. So she dropped her act and went nude to the masquerade ball.

Too late did it occur to her that after a lifetime of being what others wanted her to be she might not know what she truly was. For almost the entire mission they were forced to work together he kept glancing at her out the corner of his eye. She had tried not to read him but that was like trying not to read an open book right in front of her face with a big font. And one thing was obvious…

"Why are you afraid of me?" She asked once while they were squatting in an abandoned building around a small fire in a metal pot. She tried to project nothing but open curiosity. For some reason that made him even more nervous even though he tried to cover it with a gruff laugh.

"You mean other than the fact I've seen you kill men with nothing but your tights and not have a hair out of place?" Barton looked at her assessingly for a long minute. Once again, instead of projecting what she wanted him to see she did nothing. She wanted to know if this man who could see a mouse crystal clear a mile away could _see._

"You are too perfect." He finally told her. "Untouchable, unreadable, forgettable one moment and then leaving a lasting impression the next." With a defeated sigh he started picking his nails with the tip of his arrow. "Nothing should be that perfect. Our flaws are what make us human, and I can't see any on you. Hell, at this point I'm halfway expecting to see _Stark Industries_ laser engraved somewhere on your ass."

Crudely stated, but it got his point across. Natasha wondered if she should be disappointed that he couldn't read her or terrified that he could but there was simply nothing written.

When she didn't say anything he spun the arrow lazily on the tip of his finger. "Ya'know, now that your employers made it pretty clear you're not on their payroll anymore, would you mind if I offered you a job?" Natasha didn't even blink. Not even when he correctly interpreted it as 'go on'. "Decent pay, ridiculous hours, interesting places to visit and people to meet and-or kill, and plenty of dark corners with electrical sockets in them if you want to discreetly recharge."

That got him a twitch of the lips. It wasn't a full on smile and had he blinked he would have missed it but it was more than anyone other than Ivan had gotten in decades.

"Alright." Then she decided to test something and with a perfectly straight face asked, "But what should I say if they ask any medical questions?"

Barton actually dropped his arrow and looked at her as if to ask her if she was pulling his leg. She simply raised an eyebrow as if she had asked him a valid question and expected a serious answer.

"Er, well, I'll ask my handler." Barton not so gracefully evaded the question as he looked her over, probably looking if she had balls as joints. "By the way, call me Clint."

"Then you can call me Natasha."

When Natasha met Agent Coulson the first question he asked her was, "You must be Miss Romanoff. Do I dare ask why Agent Barton has instructed me to show you the nearest power outlet?" Natasha kept her face perfectly blank as she replied, "I wouldn't know, sir."

On the inside though, she had never laughed so hard in her life.

She was reminded of that joke years later when Coulson had assigned her to figure out what was wrong with Tony Stark. When she told Clint about the arc reactor later he made a big show out of checking her ass on the excuse that he wanted to see if she really had the SI logo laser-engraved on it. She bopped him on the head and reminded him that she was made in Russia. Clint nearly choked laughing.

And so, little by little, step by step, out of the corner of her eye, she dared to glance occasionally into a mirror. If it hadn't been for Loki she might have eventually gotten herself an actually vanity mirror. But Life had a way of reminding her what lurked on the other side. She told Loki she had red in her ledger, but she saw it on her hands every day.

A soul could be seen from a face, and a lifetime can be read out of someone's hands. There is a reason why Natasha no longer kills with her bare hands.

And as she stood next to Phil Coulson's body she dared to hold his hand. Because while Clint Barton could _see,_ Phil Coulson could _read._ It didn't matter that Clint was like a kitten getting used to sight, that Phil was like a blind man just learning Braille, they _could._ It meant she wasn't alone.

But she was. She truly, really was.

She could forget it for brief moments, but then Stark would look at Rogers like that flower girl looked at the soldier, Thor would scream at Loki with the same look on his face her mother had when she pushed her out of the burning building, Clint would tense when he saw Captain America paraphernalia and Bruce…

She knew Fury would give the order before he did. Even though Fury could see more than most he still lacked an eye in more ways than one.

_Give Banner a reason to stay._

It is perhaps the first mission she failed so utterly. Because these are the people she hesitantly started calling her friends, maybe even her family. She couldn't bring herself to be exactly what she _saw_ and _read_ he wanted. She could have been a better Betty Ross than Betty herself.

But she wasn't. Because, for the first time in her life, she couldn't be someone else to the person she cared about. Or perhaps that time came when she asked Steve Rogers who did he want her to be and he asked her to be his friend. Nothing more, but nothing less. When Steve Rogers asked her to be Natasha and his face and his hands said the same thing.

And so she set herself up for failure while giving a token protest at pretending. And when she failed just like she knew ( _saw, read, knew, what was even the difference anymore?!)_ she put on her leather gloves and stood so motionless in a room that gave no reflection and wondered if maybe _she_ were the blind one. Maybe everybody saw and even a glimpse was enough to make them close their eyes and she was the stupid masochistic one who couldn't blind herself and become illiterate.

In that room, with no mirrors and her gloves on, she made a choice. She didn't need both eyes. In the land of the blind, after all, one eyed is the king.

_Who do you want me to be?_


End file.
